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Non-profit association for the promotion of the cultural, natural, and landscape heritage represented by tree avenues

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Tree avenues

 

The French term ‘allée’ is used in many parts of Europe when referring to tree-lined ‘ways of passage’ in parks and gardens, in towns or in the country. In the context of landscapes, ‘avenue’ has the same meaning in English. ‘Avenues’ (or ‘tree avenues’) are thus ‘ways of passage’—paths, streets, and roads, but also canals—lined with rows of regularly spaced trees.

Avenues (in this sense) constitute an important cultural, natural, and landscape heritage in France, Europe, and beyond.

To know more about tree avenues, go to the "Quiz" and to the "Tree avenues and road safety" pages.

 

Our objectives

 

♦ To foster knowledge about  the cultural, natural, and landscape heritage that avenues represent ♦ Through information and education, to raise the awareness of the general public and professionals about the values of avenues ♦ To showcase the heritage of tree avenues and associated best practice ♦ To promote the economic activities and jobs avenues create ♦ To protect and renew existing avenues, and to develop new ones ♦ To support initiatives and protagonists helping to preserve tree avenues ♦

Who are we?

 

We are avenue lovers, determined to showcase this valuable heritage and convinced it is an asset for all of us. The board is made up of: Eric Mutschler, chair; Isabelle Kauffmann, secretary; Pierre Courbet, treasurer; Pierre Collin ; Qing Liu ; and Danièle Saget. Chantal Pradines, expert on avenues in France and in Europe, is executive director.

 

Our actions

ALLÉES-AVENUES /allées d'avenir/ (avenues of the future) acts at a local, a national and an international level. All actions, which are of different natures, will contribute to the future project of a European cultural route.

Actions of scientific nature:

Actions of technical nature:

  • National meetings
  • ‘Mémento’ (a guidebook in French about the protection of tree avenues)
  • a Collaborative platform open to participants of the national meetings

Actions of artistic nature:

Advocacy actions:

Logo cartouche gris NOREMAT Printexyd 230810 logo 2200x2200 greylogo Mugnier logo 2022 VIRY FAYAT GROUPE BLEU

 

2025 is a special year for the Artistic Observatory of the Ash-tree avenue in Trampot: twenty years after the RD 427 highway was very nearly stripped of all its trees, the Observatory's first exhibitions will take place:

A professor emeritus of photography at Minnesota State University, American photographer Wayne Gudmundson is known for his landscape photographs, which are included in the collections of many major American and foreign institutions. Numerous exhibitions, some twenty books and documentaries have brought his work to the attention of the public, and it has been studied and commented on by leading figures in photography such as Robert Adams. Wayne Gudmundson is interested in landscapes for the marks left by man and nature and for the history they reveal. In his black-and-white photographs, which detach us from time, he excels at conveying the precision of documentary photography and the intensity of art work.

The 25 photographs on display take us to see the avenue in Trampot and nearby avenues in this part of eastern France between Nancy and Dijon.

  XPO Allées Arbres affiche A2 2 final 2500  IMG 0204

Buy the catalogue of the exhibition, 90 pages, English and French KINEXPO catalogue Wayne v5 couverture1r

  • from 21 June to 20 July - exhibition of the rubbings made by Constance Fulda (vernissage on Saturday 21 June 11 a.m., open in the afternoon and then on Sundays from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.; also on Saturday 28 June at the same times - free admission)

Constance Fulda, trained at the Camondo School in Paris, is a French visual artist whose works are included in the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Musée de la Cité de l'Or, the Fondation Cartier and the Museum of Natural History, and are exhibited in France, India and Japan. Trees have long been a source of inspiration for Constance Fulda, with their astonishing ‘calligraphy’ that she reveals through her rubbings.

Each of the 231 rubbings on display is a poetic identity card for the ash trees in the avenue. The sheer scale of the work, stretching almost arly 120 metres, reflects the importance of the avenue.

  • on 22 June, 3pm - concert by José Le Piez and Patricia Châtelain (Angeli Primitivi) - free admission

José Le Piez and Patricia Châtelain perform music with... sculptures created by José, 'Arbrassons'. Under the caress of their hands, the wood emits  enchanting sounds in an original process referenced by the National Gallery in Washington and the Ottawa Library. The duo, which has performed with musicians such as Yuri Buenaventura, Beñat Achiary and Dominique Regef, explores space, matter and sound with improvisations combining jazz, contemporary music and choreographed movements.

Among the Arbrassons, there will be two "singing" sculptures made from an ash log from the Trampot avenue, created during José Le Piez's artist residency in 2024.

  • on 28 June, from 10 a.m. to noon in Moncel-sur-Vair, then from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Trampot -  workshop by David Wilmart about tree architecture and pruning (free workshop)

David Wilmart, himself a trained arborist, is in charge of arborist training at the Courcelles-Chaussy campus (Metz, eastern France)

Exhibitions, concert and workshop are free of charge.

The document exists only in French. Click to view


page garde dossier 25 2 tram144

Click to read our presentation document, press releases and press report

Showing what avenues represent and what they inspire helps uns understand their value

ALLÉES-AVENUES /allées d'avenir/ can put two types of exhibitions at your disposal:

In all countries, "forgiving roadside" safety policies that associate road safety with the necessary absence of roadside obstacles make it difficult or impossible to keep avenue trees and plant new ones

The international ‘Essential Beauty of Trees’ symposium that took place at the Aude County Council headquarters in Carcassonne (France) from 19 to 20 November, 2023, made a point of presenting the scientific and ethical arguments necessary to be able to assert that the preservation or creation of tree avenues must not be restricted by regulations governing the proximity of trees to the edge of the road. All presentations are available here.

The symposium pointed out that the issues of today are not the same as those of the 1960s and 70s, a time that saw the development of the ‘forgiving roadside’ doctrine.

The symposium demonstrated that the level of road safety in different regions is unrelated to tree avenues and that, on the contrary, tree avenues enhance life, whether in terms of physical health (far beyond their positive effect on the care exercised at the wheel and on speed reduction, and hence on the causes and gravity of accidents), mental health or biodiversity. In particular, the beauty of tree avenues is essential: for the human environment, for our mental health, for social cohesion, and for a country’s or a region’s public image or identity.

The Carcassonne Declaration adopted at the conclusion of the symposium therefore states that:

  • tree avenues of any kind are cultural and natural heritage assets that enhance life;
  • public policies must be concrete reflections of this in order to ensure the preservation and replanting of tree avenues;
  • application of minimum spacing distances for the maintenance and replanting of tree avenues (distances from the roadside or from adjacent properties) must be abandoned.

Real the full text of the Declaration here.

At present, the Carcassonne Declaration is supported by ∗ participants at the symposium (21/11/2023)∗ Île et Vilaine (France) senator Daniel Salmon (17/11/2023)∗ France’s honorary senator Marie-Christine Blandin (17/11/2023)∗ Seine et Marne (France) MP Aude Luquet (15/11/2023) ∗ Aude County Council (France) chair Hélène Sandragné (21/11/2023)∗ Aude County Council vice-chair in charge of Roads and Mobilities Tamara Rivel (21/11/2023) ∗ Aude County Council vice-chair in charge of Ecological Transition Francis Morlon (21/11/2023) ∗ Augny (France) deputy mayor in charge of environmental matters Claude Bertsch (12/11/2023)∗ Newbury (UK) town councillor Steve Masters (18/11/2023) ∗ Sheffield (UK) honorary town councillor Alison Teal (20/11/2023) ∗ Bundestag MP from Lower Saxony (Germany) Knut Gerschau (28/06/2024) ∗ Bundestag MP from Lower Saxony, Chair of the parliamentary working group "Kulturgut Alleen" - "Tree avenues - A cultural asset" (Germany) Filiz Polat (10/07/2024)

The Carcassonne Declaration is available for signature throughout Europe and across the world. If you are interested or know of interested elected representatives, please do contact us.

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